Description: 5-6mm long brownish black Badister living in rich vegetation or plant litter at the margins of lakes or fens. Southern and local.

NI account: Scattered in southern counties from Waterford to Clare. Also Roscommon (Speight et al., 1983). Not separated from B. peltatus until 1927 so some early records of peltatus may relate to this species.

Ecology: Found in dense shoreline vegetation or swamps on muddy lakeshores.

Distribution: A Eurosiberian temperate species (74) distributed from southern Fennoscandia to southern France and east to the Caucasus and western Siberia.

Key Identification Features:

• Small, elytra iridescent and with fine, impunctate striae
• Mandibles asymmetric, left mandible having a large dorsal tubercle and notch (Fig. 104)
• Second segment of antennae very short
• Colour almost black with only elytral margins slightly paler
• Pronotum broader, more rounded, oblique lateral part slightly arcuate (Fig. 90)

Distribution Map from NBN: Badister dilatatus at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Badister dilatatus at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Badister dilatatus | Classification: Insecta, Coleoptera, Carabidae, Badister

Thumbnails for genus Badister